For Americans, Cuba is often treated as a symbol before it is considered a market. In the U.S. imagination, the island still arrives through familiar emblems—vintage cars, revolutionary iconography, rum and cigars—while the economic question remains oddly abstract. That is a mistake. If relations were to improve, the United States would gain more than access to celebrated products. It would gain a nearby outlet for lawful trade, new openings in tourism and hospitality, and a more coherent economic relationship with a neighbor whose best-known exports remain globally desirable even as its domestic economy struggles to sustain them.
Read more… (PDF)